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    152 ii&DICINE AS A PEO^ESSION IOR WOMEN.

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    -«A» » F In Or Inviting Women, Consider ...

    these orders ; they would bring in a more respectable class of nurses and train themwhich no men can do ; they "would supervise the

    domestic _arrangements , , and give the higher tone of womanly influence so greatly needed .

    They would be at the same time a connecting link between these establishments and women in general life , enlisting * their interest

    and active services in their behalf , far more effectually than could be done by any other means . A real and great want would thus

    be supplied , and one which no other plan yet proposed has proved at all adequate to meet .

    "We come now to the position of women in medicine itself . The fact that more than half of ordinary medical practice lies among

    women and children , would seem to be , at first sight ., proof enough that there must be here a great deal that women could do for

    themselves , and that it is not a natural arrangement that in what so especially concerns themselves they should have recourse entirely

    to men . Accordingly we find _, that , from the very earliest ages , a large class of women has always existed occupying certain

    departments of medical practice . Until within half a century , a recognised position was accorded to them , and midwives were as distinct

    are a class government as doctors schools . Even for now their , in instruction most _Exrcopean where countries they are , ther most e

    carefully trained in their own speciality . This training is always the given actual in connection practiceand with hysicians a hospital of , standing of which are the emp pup loyed ils perform as

    instructors . In Pari , s , the p great hospital of La Maternite , in which several thousand women are received annuallyis entirely given up

    , to them , and Dubois , Professor of Midwifery in the medical school of Parisis at the head of their teachers . Until within a few years ,

    it was common , for eminent French physicians to receive intelligent midwives as their private pupilsand take much pains with their

    education . They were also admitted , to courses of anatomical instruction in the Ecole Pratique , and an immense amount of practice

    was in the hands of these women . The whole idea of their educationhoweverlanned . and moulded entirely by menwas not to

    enable , these women , p to do all they could in medicine , but , to make them a sort of supplement to the profession , taking off a great deal

    of laborious poor practice , and supplying a certain convenience in some branches "where it was advantageous to have the assistance of

    skilful women's hands . "With the advance of medical science , howeverand its application to all these departments of medicine , this

    division _^ of the directing head , and the subordinate hand , became impossible . Physicians dismissed , as far as possible , these

    halfeducated assistants , excluded them from many opportunities of instruction under their authority , and in the government schools ,

    which , popular custom still upholds , they have materially curtailed their education . Nor is it _possible or desirable to sanction the

    practice of any such Intermediate class , The alternative is _uiv

    152 Ii&Dicine As A Peo^Ession Ior Women.

    152 _ii _& DICINE AS A PEO _^ ESSION IOR WOMEN .

• Citation
  • English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), May 1, 1860, page 152, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01051860/page/8/